Changing Directions
by bey0ndbelieve
Summary: Rei is told by his parents that he needed a better education in order to get into the college of his choice. In order to do this they have decided to transfer him from Iwatobi to Samezuka. Rei isn't expecting to make a lot of friends at his new school, especially not those on the Swim team and especially not Haru's old friend Rin Matsuoka! but things don't go quite as planned.
1. Chapter 1

When Rei got the news off his parents that he was moving schools he didn't know what to say.

Well truth be told he said a lot of things such as

"Why are you sending me to a boarding school? Do you want to get rid of me?!" which his mother replied with

"No honey but Samezuka offers a great curriculum and we feel that it will benefit you more than Iwatobi"

Of course he was angry at his parents but he knew he wouldn't stay angry for long. He had glared at them from the kitchen doorway in which he had been standing for a good ten minutes but he didn't argue back, he was mature enough not to.

He liked his place at Iwatobi High School, he had friends there, he had Nagisa, Haru and Makoto. And what about the swim team?! Would he still be able to be on it? But he knew that his mum was right the education at Samesuka was of a high standard and if he wanted to get into college he would need it.

The only problem was telling the team.

It happened after practice the following day. They had all finished getting changed and were heading back to Harus to study when he brought it up.

"Rei chan! What do you mean you're moving school?!" Nagisa was the first to speak and he definitely looked hurt. Makoto had looked a little shocked but not as dramatic as the blonde and Haru didn't really react.

"Im Moving to Samezuka next week" Rei informed the trio and was about to continue when he was interrupted by Haru.

"That's where Rin goes to school" Rei almost stopped in his tracks when Haru spoke. He had forgotten Rin san went there! There was no going back now he had already told his parents that he would go.

Rin had only met Rei briefly at a joint training session at Samezuka so surely he wouldn't recognise Rei and besides they were going to be in the year below him so he had nothing to worry about.

A few weeks later and he had packed and was ready to leave.

Over the past weeks he had said his goodbyes to his classmates and teachers. He had been told that he could stay on the swim team as long as he balanced it with his schoolwork, he was happy about this as it meant he could still see Nagisa, Haru and Makoto.

The morning of his first day his mum wouldn't stop fussing over him. She had ironed his uniform at least three times and Rei could have sworn he got to double digits counting the amount of times she had packed and unpacked his bags to make sure he had just about everything.

She finally let him go after she came to the realisation that she didn't want her son to be late on his first day but what she didn't realise was that it was a Sunday and he wouldn't start classes till tomorrow. Rei didn't tell her this of course because he wanted to get there as soon as possible, he was already nervous and didn't want It to build anymore.

"Good luck "His mum had hugged for a good five minutes, it was as if she was sending him off to war it's not like she wasn't going to see him again, he was going to come home and visit at weekends.

The sound of the car horn released him from his mother's embrace and he made for the exit wrapping his purple hoodie around himself as the brittle December air enveloped him.

His dad sat in the driver's seat waiting and Rei walked over to the back of the car to put his bags in. He gave one last wave to his mum who was stood hugging herself in the doorway.

He got in the car and buckled his seatbelt and then his dad started the engine and they left.

The car journey was mostly silent except for the light hum of the radio and the occasional small talk between Rei and his dad. Rei wondered what the campus would be like and what his roommate would be like. Would he be dorming with a second year or do they just put the new students where there is a space so he could end up with a third year or a first year. Not that it mattered to Rei, he wasn't planning on making many friends, he just wanted to pass and get the grades he needed so whether his roommate was nice or not, Rei was not bothered.

When they arrived at the school, it didn't surpass any expectations that Rei had. It was definitely bigger than Iwatobi but that was expected seeing as it was a boarding school.

The main school building was a big brick building with a clock in the centre above the entrance, connected to the school was what Rei assumed to be the swimming pool, it wasn't brick like the rest of the school, it was plain white concrete building with lots of windows on the side letting lot of light in, the windows definitely made the building look bigger than it was.

After checking everything with the school headmaster his dad had said his goodbyes leaving the teen to himself. The dorm building was separate to the main building but it was not small. The entire school itself was massive in comparison to Iwatobi and Rei was just hoping he wouldn't get lost. He pushed open the double doors that lead into what looked like a Recreation room. Pulling out the map he used to navigate his way here he read the scribbly handwriting that belonged to the school receptionist. She had written his Dorm number on here for him and as much as Rei wanted to say it helped, it didn't. Her handwriting was very swirly and looped but as pretty as it was he just could not decipher what it said.

A tap on his shoulder made Rei jump, drop his paper and let out an almost bird like squawk. He bent down to pick up the paper but unfortunately for him so did the unknown person resulting in a painful head collision. Rei almost cursed as he held his head in one hand, his eyes closed and the paper in the other.

"Shit that hurt!" Rei opened his eyes to see a male crouched in front of him, rubbing his own head. Suddenly the boy jumped up making the bluenette jump slightly. Rei stood up a lot slower than he did looking just as confused as before. "I'm Momotarou! But you can just call me Momo and im sorry for making you jump like that it's just you were looking very intently at that paper in your hand and I was curious as to what was on it"

Rei was rendered speechless by his unexpected energy, it was in the time that the boy was speaking did Rei take in his appearance. He had short wispy ginger hair and he wore a bright yellow t shirt and jeans, he was a head shorter than Rei but his voice was loud for his size. Only when Rei finally came out of his thoughts did he see that the boy was looking expectantly at him and then he remembered the question he had been asked.

"Oh-uh sorry! Im Rei Ryugazaki!" Rei stuttered and handed Momo the paper " I was trying to figure out what room im in and I couldn't read the receptionists handwriting" Momo looked at the paper for a few seconds, twisting and turning it in his hands as if it were to help and then suddenly he handed the paper back to Rei

"You're in 20B! You're sharing with Sousuke" he smiled as Rei took the paper back from him. "I can show you where it is if you want. It's obvious your new here Rei Ryugazaki" Momo said imitating Reis previous formality. He looked behind Rei at the set of bags behind him and Rei turns himself to pick them up.

"Yes, thank you" Rei nodded and Followed Momo who had already started walking out the room.

Once Rei had caught up with him Momo turned to him slightly, still walking.

"So Rei how come you moved to Samezuka? And what year are you in 'cus im only a first year?" Rei was already beginning to like the younger teen, it was probably because he reminded him a lot of Nagisa with his bubbly personality and hyper activeness.

" I'm a second year so I won't be in any of your classes, sorry and I um moved here because my parents thought it was better for me and they thought the education was better than my previous school" he explained as Momo continued to guide him through different corridors. Rei took note that he should probably pay attention so that he could avoid getting lost.

They continued walking for about five minutes making some small talk along the way. Rei learnt that Momo was on the swim team along with Sousuke who he remembered was mentioned earlier, a boy called Nitori and Rin. Obviously Rei knew Rin was on the swim team. Rei also learnt that his roommate was Rins best friend, He hoped that his roommate didn't have a habit of inviting friends over because Rei didn't really feel like having an awkward encounter with Haru's old friend.

Suddenly Momo stopped and Rei looked to see that they had arrived at his room.

"So uh do you need help unpacking or.." Momo awkwardly stood with his hands in his pockets. Rei quickly shook his head

"No I should be fine on my own" Momo nodded and turned to walk away not before saying goodbye and giving a little wave like gesture as he leaves. Rei sighed and picked up his bags. He went to open the door but it is surprised to see it open itself. He sees a hand on the door handle and followed the hand up to see a tall dark haired person stood in front of him. Rei gulped at his height and resisted the urge to push up his glasses, a nervous habit of his. He went to introduce himself but the other student pushed past him before he had the chance. He assumed that was Sousuke seeing as he wasn't expecting anyone else to be in the room.

Rei sighed and walked into the room and placed his bags onto the neater of the two beds. He looked around the room. It wasn't a small room but it wasn't big either. It had plain white walls on his side of the room and then on the other side of the room there was some band posters that Rei had never seen before and some clothes thrown across the bed and mixing with the messy bedding.

Rei pushed his glasses further up his nose and then sat down on his bed and eventually ended up lying down. He stared up at the ceiling just taking what has happened over the past day.

He had arrived at this new school, made friends with someone by injuring them and seemed to piss someone off in the first five seconds of meeting them.

'Just great' Rei thought to himself 'this is going to be a long year'.


	2. Chapter 2

**Authers note: hi there! I don't claim to know anything about Japanese school life and I only researched it after writing this chapter so I'm sorry that it is incredibly inaccurate - so I just sorta made up my own also in the previous chapter my description of the Samezuka School building Is not accurate I again just made it up as you don't really see much of the building in the anime. I hope you enjoy this crappy chapter!**

* * *

The next morning Rei had woken up at the early hour of 6am, he struggled to find his alarm, digging around in his bed until he sought out his phone. He quickly switched off the alert with a tired yawn and then looked over to the other side of the room to see a human shaped lump in the other bed.

Rei contemplated waking Sousuke up but didn't want to risk it, his schedule could start later than Rei's after all. He slowly stood up and stretched letting out a second yawn.

Making his way to the bathroom, Rei went over his schedule in his head, he had memorised it the day before. He had Biology first which he was looking forward to, then he had his English class as he wanted to learn the language in case he wanted to travel when he was older. After that was calculus which was a shared class between the second years and first years.

He broke from his thoughts for a second as he undressed from his pyjamas and stepped into the small shower, after about two minutes of figuring out how to use it he finally got the water running.

Going back to his school schedule he then had lunch after calculus , he should probably remember to take some money for that. After lunch he had Physical Education which he remembered was swimming, he then had free period after that which meant going back to his room to study.

He was interrupted from his thinking by a loud knocking on the bathroom door.

"Oi! How long are you gonna be in there? I need to get ready" Rei jumped slightly at the noise and quickly hopped out of the shower after rinsing the soap out of his hair.

"Sorry! I'll be out in a few minutes" He hastily replied wrapping a towel round his waist. He looked around and realised he had left his uniform on his desk chair. After pulling the towel tighter around his waist to ensure its security he walked over to the bathroom door opening it quickly. He almost dropped the towel at the close proximity of his roommate who was stood a mere few inches from the door.

Sousuke smirked as Rei went to push his glasses up his nose but then realised they were not there. After a few seconds of painful silence Sousuke moved past the awkward mess that is Rei and headed into the bathroom. Rei sighed rather loudly as he moved over to his chair to pick up his uniform.

After putting it on, he glanced in the mirror not liking the way the completely white uniform looked on him, it messed with his complexion and for some reason it made him look a lot paler than before or maybe that was just the nerves that had suddenly attacked him.

It had dawned on him that he would know no one and he barely knew his way around the campus so getting lost was most likely going to happen. Rei barely had any friends at Iwatobi until Nagisa had confronted him about the swim team and even then he still had trouble talking to people.

Speaking of Nagisa a few moments later Reis phone buzzed signalling he had a text which had coincidentally been from his blonde friend, he also had one from Makoto and one from his mum.

He sat down on the bed and reached for his glasses, checking the time. It was 8:00 which meant he had time to check the messages before his classes started at 8:30, providing his journey to the Biology labs went smoothly.

 ** _Nagisa: Hey rei-chan! You better come to training on Friday I'm already missing you :((_**

 ** _Makoto: Good luck Rei, hope that your first day goes well! P.S Haru says tell Rin hi._**

 ** _Mum: Just checking to make sure you woke up on time, don't be late for your first lesson!_**

 ** _Have you got money for lunch? Do I need to send more next week? What's your roommate like? Is he nice? Good luck son. Your father says good luck as well he just can't be bothered sending a text. Xx_**

Rei smiled at the concern of his mother's text, and replied telling her everything is fine. He then replied to Nagisa telling him that he doesn't have to worry and he will be at training and he said thanks to Makoto and lied saying he will say hi if sees Rin but being honest Rei was not planning to confront the Redhead any time soon.

He checked the time once again and sees that fifteen minutes has passed indicating that he should get going and the fact that Sousuke had gotten out of the shower five minutes ago and had already left himself.

Biology and English had gone perfectly fine, he had been given work to catch up on from the months he wasn't in the class, It wasn't much so he could probably get it done tonight after classes. Calculus he had ended up being five minutes late to the lesson due to getting lost between the English block and accidentally going to the Humanities corridor. Being late resulted in him having to have the embarrassment of interrupting the lesson and then not being able to choose his seat which meant being seated next to Nitori Aichiro, a second year like himself.

Nitori wasn't a bad person, in fact Rei thought he was one of the nicest people he had ever met, he helped him with the questions given to him in class and even offered to help him catch up after lessons in the school library because they shared free period together. Rei had accepted as he felt it was very hard to decline this meant pushing his Biology and English work to later on in the evening. He even had lunch hour and Physical Education with him, it wouldn't hurt to just stick with Nitori for the rest of the day Rei thought as they packed away to head to lunch, it's not like he was going to become friends they were just classmates, acquaintances.

The cafeteria was a lot bigger than the one at Iwatobi, although Rei didn't spend much time in the cafeteria at his old school, he brought his own Bento boxes and ate on the school roof with Nagisa, Makoto, Haru and occasionally Gou.

He had been informed by Nitori that there was three lunch slots. third years had their lunch from twelve till one and then second years were from one to two and then first years were from two to three. So Nitori had said he was glad he had someone to sit with because his friends were mostly in different years.

Lunch was just a simple Bento and he also found out that it was provided by the school so no money was needed, Rei should probably let his mum know so that she didn't need to keep giving him money. Throughout the hour Nitori and Rei made simple Smalltalk. They talked about Reis old school and his friends. He also learnt that Nitori had met him at one of the joint team meets and it was then that Rei realised the boy looked familiar. He had been asked if he was going to join Samezuka swim team to which Rei replied with no saying that he was planning to stay with Iwatobi.

After lunch they headed to their last lesson which was at the swimming pool. Rei had almost forgotten to bring his swimming stuff with him to the school if he hadn't been reminded by his mum about ten times. They had gotten changed with the rest of the second years and Rei had begun to feel a bit claustrophobic with about twenty other students in the small room which was quite warm itself. When they went out to spacious pool area he had almost sighed in relied if it wasn't for the fact that he was still quite nervous about swimming in front of so many people. Sure he had swam in front of a lot more than this when he had been at competitions but he was in the comfort of his team, this time he was on his own and Rei had to admit he still wasn't the most confident of swimmers.

A whistle made him jump as he looked around for the source. Rei's eyes widened in surprise as at the other end of the bench was two third years but they weren't any random students they were Rin and his roommate Sousuke.

Where were the teachers? Why was there third years giving out instructions.

"Rin and Sousuke take this class because Captain Mikoshiba is always busy at this time" Rei looks over to Nitori confused until he realised that he must have spoken his thoughts out loud.

A few moments later they are ordered to get into two lines and do some warm up laps around the pool.

Swimming wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, he didn't think Rin had recognised him and if he did he didn't do anything to make Rei suspect he had. He was now back at his room after being in the library for about two hours doing calculus

It was currently seven o'clock in the evening and he had been doing biology for the past hour and still hadn't finished, he also had English to do and Rei would rather he got them both out the way at the start of the week so that he could be on track with the rest of the class and not be falling behind.

A few hours later and Rei had finished at the late hour of ten. Sousuke had come back around nine and they spoke briefly about how their days had been. Rei had learnt that he wasn't that bad of a person, just that when they had first met the dark haired teen was late for a meeting with a friend so didn't have time to talk, he had apologised to Rei for pushing past him and Rei had accepted it with a smile and the two had seemed to get along quite well, Rin had been brought up by Sousuke at one point but Rei didn't let him know that he already knew he was.

Sousuke had gone to sleep about ten minutes earlier and Rei had learnt that he tended to snore which was distracting him from his work so the younger male decided that it was time he had gone to bed as well.

He quickly got changed into his pyjamas and climbed into bed and checked his phone to see if he had any messages. He had one text from Nagisa asking how his day had been. Rei didn't reply as he was just too tired so he made the decision to reply in the morning. A few moments later Rei had drifted off to a peaceful sleep and soon began snoring himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**authors note: Hello. I'm surprised if you have stuck with this story so far XD. so heres chapter 3! also just a warning that I wont be able to get chapters out as frequently as I hope due to having exams in about two weeks time so updates will be on a slower release speed from now until mid june when I can upload again as I'm on summer break.**

 **also just as another pre warning that this story will involve Rei having panic attacks as It is an aspect of stressful student life that I can relate to and ive always had this headcanon of Rei worrying too much about deadlines and getting things perfect etc, just so you know for later chapters I will obviously put a trigger warning at the start of that chapter just to let you know :)**

 **hope you enjoy!**

Rei had now been attending Samezuka for just over a month and in his opinion it had been going just fine.

He had managed to catch up with his lessons meaning he was at a similar level to the rest of his peers.

He still remained to sit with Nitori at lunch hour and he actually hung out with him quite a bit seeing as they were in a lot of classes together, because of this he resulted in occasionally talking to Momo as well because it seemed Momo and Nitori were in fact quite close friends.

He only really talked to Sousuke in the evenings when they were both in their room and this was usually just pointless chatter or helping each other with class work.

Although at one point Sousuke had in fact brought Rin back to the room to do some homework which resulted in Rei having to explain to his roommate why after all this time he 'forgot' to mention that he knew his best friend, had to explain to Rin what he was doing here instead of at iwatobi and then Rin had begun to reminisce over the time that Rei forgot to bring his swimwear to his first joint training and then proceeded to share how he had in Rins words 'flopped like a fish' when attempting to swim. This had Rei groaning in embarrassment and hiding his face In his books whilst Sousuke was trying to hold back his laughter but ultimately failing to do so, which resulted in more embarrassment for the younger out of the three.

Rei had tried to get some Calculus homework done that night but Rin and Sousuke had other plans when they had started to watch some Australian TV drama that Rin had enjoyed from when he spent time over there. Due to the fact neither of them had earphones, they played it out loud which was in the end too distracting for Rei so he decided to break off from his studies for the night.

With a quiet sigh he stood from his desk chair, declined Rins invitation to go watch the show with them and instead went to go have a shower, taking his pyjamas with him.

That evening had been around the second week into the school term and now that Rin knew that Rei was here, he had begun to help him in sports class whether he wanted him to or not. This had become quite a problem for Rei because he knew that compared to the swimmers at Samezuka he was not the best, he wasn't the worst in his class but still, not the best.

Because of this Rin would have this habit of pointing out flaws in Reis stroke or constantly tell him to improve his form. This was more of an annoyance than anything because unlike a lot of his friends he didn't want to become a swimmer when he was older, he only liked the sport because of the experiences it gave him ,not to make a living out of it.

It was also embarrassing because nine out of ten times Rin wouldn't take into consideration that they were in a class of over 15 so when he was quite loudly giving his advice the majority of the students would hear it, therefore making Rei feel self-conscious at the sudden spams of attention that had been drawn over to him.

Rei didn't quite know why he couldn't just ask Rin to be quieter when giving him advice or to just leave him alone once in a while whilst swimming. Maybe it was because he didn't want to come off as rude or ungrateful, yes that was it, that was probably it.

It was now a day before the school finished for Christmas, those who chose to could have the week to visit their families back at home.

Rei had just finished packing when a knock at the door startled him. He put down the shirt that he had been folding and headed over. Rei was quite surprised to find Rin waiting sheepishly in the corridor.

"Uh..hi?" It came out more of a question than a greeting which wasn't unexpected as Rei was to say the least confused as to why Rin was here, he surely knew that Sousuke had left to visit his own family.

"Sorry to bother you but I think I left my wallet here the last time I was round" Rin explained with an awkward laugh. Rei nodded and moved to the side to let the redhead in. He then went back to finishing packing his own things, not bothering to continue any hopes of conversation between them.

After a few minutes of rummaging around Sousukes remaining things, Rin finally found the flimsy worn out leather wallet.

"Found it!" He exclaimed holding it up with a toothy grin "thanks Rei for letting me in, dunno what I would have done without it for the holidays" his laughter filled the room for a good minute and Rei nodded in reply whilst finishing up his packing, soon enough the room fell into a tense silence as Rin looked over the posters on the wall above Sousukes bed before acknowledging that the younger teen wanted to leave the room himself.

"I best be going" he awkwardly spun around and started to walk out of the room but not before turning to say one last thing

"Merry Christmas Rei"

and then he was gone. Rei didn't have chance to reply and tell the other happy holidays. He picked up his bags and walked out of the room himself, locking the door behind him.

As he made his way to the train station Rei was not sporting a rather big grin, he wasn't trying to contain butterfly's that he strangely had managed to pick up and he was most definitely not thinking about those three words for the entire train journey back.

Christmas break was nice. He had spent his Christmas Eve at Harus house with his friends, they had exchanged presents and spent the rest of the night watching lame movies. They had asked him about his new school which he answered in brief detail, saying it was simply just "good".

He had woken up early on Christmas morning and spent the day with his parents and to his surprise his brother had travelled down for the occasion. He had gotten clothes off his parents, his brother had given him money, apologising that he hadn't had time to go out and buy him a proper present but will make it up to him next year. Nagisa had got him chocolate and one of those silly snow globes that you could buy,it had a purple butterfly in the middle resting on what looked like a leaf. Rei made a mental note to ask where he had found it as he would quite like to get some more ,seeing as his desk at Samezuka was looking quite boring at the moment. It turned out that Haru and Makoto had put their money together to buy Rei lots of stationery and new notepads which he appreciated as it would help a lot with organising his schoolwork.

Christmas dinner had been spent talking about his brothers job and how he had spent his year studying neuron science.

Then the subject changed to how Reis school life was going, he explained in a lot more detail than what he told his friends. He talked about his classes and what he was studying, he spoke about how he was going to prepare for midterms when the time came. His mother was impressed with how well he had settled down at his school and had even made him promise that she could meet his new friends. Rei had only spoken briefly about Sousuke, Nitori, Momo and Rin and he couldn't truthfully say that he would keep up his promise to his mother.

After dinner Rei and his brother had offered to wash up whilst his parents had gone into the front room.

It was around ten o'clock in the evening when Rei had the chance to check his phone, he had only been in his room for around ten minutes as his parents decided they stay up for a bit to play scrabble.

On his phone he had a message off Nitori saying Merry Christmas this wasn't surprising as they had exchanged numbers a few days before he left for break. There was another text which Rei was confused about, he didn't know who sent it.

 **[hey Rei! I got your number from Haru sorry if that's creepy aha just wanted to say Happy Christmas...again..]**

Rei tried to decipher just who had sent the message because as useful as it would have been they didn't say their name.

 ** _[umm who is this?]_**

 **[oh sorry how stupid of me! It's Rin...can't believe I didn't tell you my name..must have been pretty freaked out there]**

Rei just then remembered Rin saying happy Christmas to him before he got on the train and now he had to question why Rin had gone through the trouble of asking Haru for his number. Couldn't he have asked Rei himself?

 ** _[ah Rin-San! Merry Christmas to you to! Hope you didn't lose your wallet again]_**

 **[you can just call me Rin, there's no need for the San Rei. And I'll have you know that my wallet is on my desk right as I type this message!]**

 **[okay I lied it was under my bed...]**

Rei can't help but let out a small laugh at Rins message and smiled as he typed his reply. Let's just say Rei didn't reply to his other messages and definitely stayed to a very late hour messaging the Samezuka team member.


End file.
